Police stations
Background * P-G coverage of possible move of police stations Through mid-2003, the city's western neighborhoods were policed from the Zone 4 station, on the West End's Main Street. Mayor Tom Murphy closed it to cut costs. Since then, nearly all police work south of the Monongahela and Ohio rivers has been conducted from South Side's Zone 3 station, at 18th and Mary streets. Former Police Chief Robert W. McNeilly Jr. said in December, 2005, that his bureau was considering moving the Zone 3 station. Mr. O'Connor said he had no immediate plans to move the Zone 3 station. The Zone 4 building, now without a police station, contains an Emergency Medical Services station, the Fire Bureau's arson investigation's unit, a program for repairing bicycles, and storage for the Citiparks and computer departments. It does NOT include the youth cerfew station, as also proposed by Murphy. Former Zone 4 re-opens in October, 2006, with different role Police brass and city officials turned out in force for the official reopening of the old Zone 4 police station in the West End, which closed in 2003 despite protests from the community. The refurbished station on South Main Street, where the Special Deployment Division has made its home since June, 2006, is now the official headquarters for that unit. The building will house SDD's various squads - the motorcycle, street response, bike, collision investigation, truck safety and intoxilyxer units. Prior to cutting the ribbon, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl said an increased police presence in the West End, which is covered by the South Side station, was important for the community. "We realized this was an issue that needed to be addressed," he said. "I think it's a great day for the West End," said former City Councilman Alan Hertzberger, a member of the West Pittsburgh Partnership who fought to keep the old zone station open. "The right thing happened finally." He said the high visibility of the specialized units will give citizens and businesses more peace of mind and make criminals think twice. "Perception is a big part of this," he said. "That's how it is with the bad guys, too. They aren't going to do anything with all these cops everywhere." Zone 4 closed in August 2003 during layoffs of police officers and a reorganization of the zone stations. Officers from the station were combined with those in Zone 3. The new station will not house zone officers, but it will be staffed with desk officers 24 hours a day South Side Police Station Coverage in April, 2006, City Paper about the Zone 3 Station If you’re a male patrolman in the Pittsburgh Police Department’s Zone 3, you literally can’t take a leak without Commander RaShall Brackney knowing about it. Her office is separated from the men’s room by a thin wall, and Brackney can hear every flush. Not that she wants to: She prides herself on being an assertive supervisor — officers occasionally refer to her as “Brack-Attack” — but there are limits. “Some of these guys must have bladder-control problems,” she grouses as the toilet flushes again. It could be worse: Her crime-prevention officer has a desk in the station’s boiler room. During shift changes, the locker room gets so congested that some officers change in their cars. Located in the South Side, the station has been cramped ever since mid-2003, when the city merged Zone 3 and Zone 4 as a cost-cutting move. Some 140 officers now work out of the station, which covers the southern third of the city. The only free space is the now-unused holding cells … and even these ... ... Consider the Zone 3 station itself. “It’s too small for all the work that gets accomplished out of there,” admits McNeilly. When he merged Zone 3 and Zone 4, he says, he kept the South Side station because it was more central. But “We had hoped to move it to some other location.” That seems unlikely for now. O’Connor has said he hopes to return the old Zone 4 station to public-safety use, and Skrinjar says that all options “are on the table” when it comes to relocating the current station. But he acknowledges, “There’s no deadline set” for such a decision. Given the city’s financial travails, future investments are in doubt: O’Connor recently put on hold plans to bring the force up to 900 officers. ... Links * Police Category: Public Safety